Transforming Voice into Dynamic Fonts: Visuelle Kommunikation (Visual Communication) Students Honoured at DDC
Mai Do’s »VOXAIPE – Decoded« digital typography project was honoured at the Deutschen Design Club (DDC) competition. The innovative, AI-supported typography design tool stood out with its conceptual originality and design quality in the »Digital Talents« category. Her work explores how artificial intelligence can translate voices into visual forms.
»VOXAIPE – Decoded« is a digital AI-based typography tool that directly converts the human voice into written characters. Rather than following rigid rules, the typography is created using sound, rhythm, and timbre. The self-trained large language model uses these elements to generate a lively, dynamic font. The results immediately reveal how artificial intelligence »reads« people through form rather than meaning. The result is a visual representation of the voice that falls somewhere between true expression and digitally generated form.
The work shifts from a typographic perspective to a phonographic one: The AI responds to voice, interprets frequencies, and volume, which it then translates into independent, dynamic letter forms. Speech becomes design, and typographies mirror algorithmic perception. The project is especially relevant in that it understands AI as not simply a tool, but as a design partner. This opens a new aesthetic and conceptual approach to artificial intelligence.
The installation also reflects on the ethical questions of an everyday life shaped by technology: Using minimal resources such as voice, light, and code, the project raises awareness of immaterial waste, such as endless generation, permanent attention, and aesthetic excess. It shows how AI appropriates and transforms means of expression. The project considers voices to be a renewable resource and emphasises a mindful approach that strives for resonance over growth.
A video of the installation can be seen here: https://vimeo.com/1142462077
About the competition:
The Deutsche Design Club (DDC) awards the DDC AWARD to outstanding design projects. Since 1989, initially under the motto »Gute Gestaltung« and since 2021 under the motto »WAS IST GUT«, a non-commercial competition has been held to recognise practical, interdisciplinary, and future-oriented design concepts.
»VOXAIPE – Decoded« by Mai Do was created during the summer semester in the »adapt, react, interact« module and was supervised by artistic staff member Marcel Saidov at the »Typography and Typeface Design« professorship.
In case of questions, please contact Romy Weinhold, Press and Public Relations Officer for the Faculty of Art and Design by phone at +49 3643/58-1186 or by e-mail to romy.weinhold[at]uni-weimar.de.